


Thorrs Draumar

by Numina



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: A teeny bit of frostiron, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Spoilers, Boys In Love, Boys Kissing, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fix-It of Sorts, Like all the hugs, M/M, Or maybe that's just me, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Thor (Marvel) Needs a Hug, Thor (Marvel) is Not Stupid, thorki in my head but not so much on the page
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-04
Updated: 2018-05-04
Packaged: 2019-05-02 06:09:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14538372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Numina/pseuds/Numina
Summary: Thor has a dream.





	Thorrs Draumar

Thor felt the pull of a prophetic dream, drawn up like water even as he sank into sleep. He feared no visions of ruin anymore.

He’d been plagued by dark dreams all his life. They were his birthright. As the great-grandson of Ymir, whose brains are the clouds in the sky, the god of thunder's dreams had always been turbulent, dark, and ominously charged. The childhood terrors had only worsened after he'd embraced the witchcraft of the waters of sight, risking his life for wisdom in the well of the worlds. 

Since then, the dreams had gloatingly foreshadowed every step of his path to the utter desolation of the universe. Dazzling images of glittering gems and Asgard in flames. Inexorable things that he was, it the final estimation, completely helpless to ever turn aside or even delay. He had, in his youthful arrogance, thought them dreams for a hero, to give him warning, to give him instruction, to give him time to gather allies. But with Thanos, as with Ragnarok, it seemed that even he; with all his strength, all his forethought, all his craft as a son of Odin; was only meant to witness them happen, never to prevent them. He had learned, before the end, to fear his dreams, but had lost that fear as well. Everything the visions had ever given him, hope and fear alike, they had taken away again completely.

So he went to it.

If he was to have no respite, even in sleep, from the echoed cries of his vanished comrades, or the unwashable taste of ash in his mouth, so be it. He went to it defiantly, under a sky filled with stars and planets where all life worthy of the name suffered senselessly. He lay in the dark and closed his eyes on a universe awash in loss. With nothing more for the visions to take, he leaned into the current of dreaming, and prayed to his ancestors, humbly, for a vision of death.

But the rising sensation ended without any new vision beginning, and he opened his eyes wondering if he had been barred from sleep, as if some officious power had closed all the borders between life and death, even dreaming, in the wake of the mass defection.

He found himself standing, the room vague and grey.

Loki stood not far off, his back turned. He was wearing the clothes he’d died in. Thor shook his head in wry self-admonition, _died in most recently_.

Still. He didn’t want that dream. He didn’t want to watch it again. It was enough to witness futures he couldn’t prevent, where at least the sadistic grip of hope could blunt what he was seeing. He had no interest in the irrevocable horrors of the past. They were fears he could no longer run towards, even if he would. In a heartbeat.

Still. Loki turned to him slowly. Thor closed his eyes, closed them over and over, but his vision refused to go black. He didn’t want to see Loki’s face, red-eyed, dead-eyed, the mocking inquisitive angle of his head in death, the-

“Hello brother,” Loki’s smile was light and easy, his visage whole and unmarked. He stood with his hands parted, that stance that said _ta da_.

Thor bowed his head and turned away. He couldn’t do this. He wouldn’t. “Say what you will. And do not taunt me if you would have my hearing. Dream or spirit or vision, I shall not weep for your pleasure.”

Loki sighed, impatient but sympathetic, and held out a hand, “Thor. I’m here.”

Thor raised his eyes, the lines of his face mounded and hard, his voice harder, “You’re not.”

Loki dropped his arm with an exasperated huff, his spread-handed shrug almost rhetorical, “What makes you so sure?”

“Because if you were here I’d be kicking your ass! What right did you have to…” he trailed off, closing his eyes against tears. When he trusted his voice again he muttered, “What do you want?”

Loki tilted his head, puzzled, “I don’t know, I thought you brought me here,” he leaned towards Thor’s line of sight, “But...you really don’t think you did, do you.”

Thor looked about the immaterial grey space, “It’s just a dream.”

Loki folded his arms in irritation, “Yes well if I really am dead and you really are as alone as you seem to think you are, you’re going to need to stop thinking like that.”

Thor folded his own arms, pricked by Loki’s tone, “Like what?”

“Just a dream,” Loki scoffed, “Or just a trick. Just an illusion. How about it’s _just death_. Have you ever tried that thought on for size, or is it too big for your thick head.”

Thor’s balled fists dropped to his sides as his shoulders canted towards the mocking vision, “It’s not the same thing!”

Loki mirrored him, “It’s _exactly_ the same thing! That's what you've never understood!”

They stood there glaring and, as usual, Loki was the first to gather up something to say as if they hadn't just been screaming at each other, shifting into his jauntiest didactic cheek as easily as he shifted his weight back onto his heels, “If this were just a dream, would I be able to do this?”

There was a flash of green light and Tony Stark materialized, an arm draped over Loki's shoulders. He gave Thor a wink as Loki smirked.

Thor shook his head. He tried to summon up words for how stupid that assertion was without letting amusement get the better of him, but before he could say anything, “Tony” had put a hand on Loki’s cheek and drawn him into an aggressive kiss. Loki’s eyebrows leaped up in feigned shock and his upper body froze defensively, but he didn’t pull away, and Tony determinedly worked a responsive softness into his lips that gradually seeped down his shoulders and spine.

Annoyance blended with amusement stung him in the gut as deftly as a dagger. There was no emotional mix he associated more with Loki, nor anyone else he’d ever known as reliable in producing it. He sighed and smiled in fond resignation, deciding it was worth the risk to believe, “Loki I-”

Loki held up one finger, still energetically lip-locking with Tony Stark, and gave a little surprised squeak as Tony grabbed his ass posessively.

Thor folded his arms and waited.

Finally Loki managed to open one eye and roll it sideways far enough to catch Thor’s lour. With a loud pop of broken suction and a wistful sigh, Loki disengaged from the flash-fading billionaire genius playboy philanthropist, "There. Now wouldn't you much rather believe that was my idea and not yours?"

Thor tried not to let his grimace look too much like a smile as he flicked the back of his hand towards the vanished image, “I truly hope you didn’t just choose the _most_ inappropriate possible way to let me know that my good friend and comrade is also dead.”

Loki shook his head, “No, I didn't. Because in the first place he’s not and in the second the _most_ inappropriate way would involve six chickens and a buggy whip.”

Thor resented the laugh that escaped him more than the several large tears that followed, “And you? Are you...”

The smile-lines around Loki's eyes softened, “I can’t tell you that. It’s tied up in too many other things that…” he shook his head, “And anyway, like I was trying to tell you before, even if I am it’s only death. It’s never real.”

“But what does that mean?”

Loki shook his head mournfully, “I can’t tell you.”

Thor nodded, doubtful that he'd understand or accept it anyway, “Well what can you tell me?”

“Well. Stark needs you. He’s stuck out on a dead planet all alone with his crumbling psyche and you’re the only one left that’s qualified to go find him. Look up Jane Foster. She’s still grief-stricken over Darcy, but she’ll know how to help.”

Thor frowned doubtfully, “These dreams don’t tend to show me anything I can actually make better. How do I know you’re not just sending me there to find his body? Or to watch him die?”

Loki looked at him steadily, “You don’t. But you do know that even if that’s all you’ll be able to do, you ought to do it.”

Thor nodded wearily, “These dreams are also not usually as straightforward as this.”

Loki grinned, “That’s why it’s handy that I’m so bad at rules.”

Thor winced his way through another irresistible smile, his posture relinquishing a little of its tension. He clasped Loki by the shoulder experimentally, and dragged him into a hug when he’d confirmed that he was solid. Loki hugged him back and petted him with equal parts earnestness and awkwardness.

Without letting go, Thor tried valiantly to focus, “What else. What else can you tell me?”

Loki let his ear rest lightly against Thor's head, “I could tell you that I’m sorry, I suppose.”

Thor scoffed, unmoving, “You’re never sorry.”

“I’m always sorry,” he shrugged, jostling Thor upright, “But that works out to about the same thing, I suppose."

Thor nodded, dropping his hands to his sides, "I suppose."

Loki smiled, "I like the new eye.”

"Hmm, thanks," Thor touched his right temple self consciously, "Still getting used to it...a low priority on a long list."

Loki took a reluctant dawdling step back but Thor took him by the shoulder again, "Please don't go. Is there anything else you can tell me?" 

Loki lost momentum and rested a hand on Thor's neck to bring their foreheads together, “Nothing that should need saying."

Thor returned the gesture. There were too many things he couldn't bear to say if he also had to let go, so he thought them as loudly as he could, and willed Loki to know them. Then he let go, nodding resolutely.

It was Loki's turn to clear his throat roughly, "Two more things, actually, then I do have to go away again. For a while.”

Thor steeled himself, standing up straight to listen. He’d aged enormously in just ten short years. He’d learned a lot about trying to fight what dreams had to tell him, “Alright.”

“The first,” Loki sighed and needed to look away, as he sometime did when telling the truth, “You’re still alive for a reason. And it’s not just to suffer. Everyone left in the universe,  _everyone,_ has just lost everything that truly matters most to them. Most of them have never felt that before. You have, you and your comrades. You know what that pain is; what it means, what it does, and how to survive it. So, when the opportunity comes, you’ll know what to do.”

Thor swallowed a lump of emotion before it could form a bitter laugh, “But I don’t.”

Loki nodded, “But you will,” he gave that _ta da_ smirk again, “so, you’re welcome.”

Thor’s fists and eyes closed tight, “And the last thing?”

Loki nodded, “Sit down.”

Thor looked up into the muddled mist incredulously, “You’re going to tell me something that shocking then?”

Loki nodded, “Maybe. But not if you don’t sit.”

Thor obeyed, grunting stiffly as he lowered himself to the ground, "If I so much as hear a chicken..." he muttered darkly.

Loki crouched down next to his right side, regarding him very seriously, and Thor only vaguely realized that they were children again. He was sitting in the practice yard by the palace stables on Asgard. His head hurt, his pride hurt, and his right eye had gone completely black with blood. He hadn’t realized that at the time, of course. He’d thought he’d actually knocked it out when he’d fallen and cracked his head on the bench. It had just been an accident, a bad thrust compounded by bad footing and a sloppy parry, and all of a sudden the universe had gone half dark, and he'd begun to panic.  

And Loki crouched by him, clearly upset, his eyes round at the sight of so much blood from a simple scalp wound, even more shocked at the sight of Thor crying because of something he’d done...by accident. And he’d told him what every child, every life worthy of the name, needs to hear once in a while. They'd seldom heard it, because their mother was such a realist and their father was so bad at lying for anyone’s sake but his own.

Loki looked him in the eye and said, “It’s going to be alright.”

He held his hand, pressed their foreheads together and said, “Shh, shh, don't listen to the fear, listen to me. It’s going to be alright.”

Thor opened his eyes, his natural blue one leaking copious tears, his synthetic gold one telling him the precise time of the early morning for the time zone of the planet he was currently on.

Through huge windows, the huge Wakandan sky was soupy with grey clouds. They suited the unified numbness and grief beneath as well as beyond them. But as rain began to hiss down, it reassured one insignificant, puny god with a comforting thought. He pressed his head against the high-tech glass that reminded him too much of home.  
  
_Shh, shh, it’s going to be alright._

Some part of him knew it was probably a lie. Still, that alone made him smile.


End file.
